“There is one little difficulty that I have to contend with at present in playing comedy, and that is a tendency to laugh myself when I hear the house laughing. I suppose I shall get over this in time, but now, if I succeed in being at all comical, it tickles me as much as it does the audience, and, although I could keep grave enough if they didn’t laugh, the moment they start I want to join in. But it is not only at my own doings that I am inclined to laugh. Anything funny on the stage amuses me, and being mixed up in it makes no difference. I played Frank to our Low Comedian’s Major de Boots the other night. He was in extra good form and very droll, and I could hardly go on with my part for laughing at him. Of course, when a piece is played often, one soon ceases to be amused; but here, where each production enjoys a run of one consecutive night only, the joke does not pall. “There is a man in the town who has been to the theater regularly every night since we opened. The pantomime ran a month, and he came all through that. I know I was sick enough of the thing before it was over, but what I should have been sitting it out from beginning to end every evening, I do not like to think. Most of our patrons, though, are pretty regular customers. The theater-going population of the town is small but determined. Well, you see, ours is the only amusement going. There was a fat woman came last week, but she did not stay long. The people here are all so fat themselves they thought nothing of her.” CHAPTER XII. “Mad Mat” Takes Advantage of an Opportunity. [Illustration:9121] HAD a day in London before starting off on my next venture, and so looked in at my old theater. I knew none of the company, but the workmen and supers were mostly the same that I had left there. Dear old Jim was in his usual state and greeted me with a pleasant: “Hulloa! you seem jolly fond of the place, _you_ do. What the deuce brings here?” I explained that it was a hankering to see him once again. “Mad Mat” was there, too. The pantomime was still running, and Mat played a demon with a pasteboard head. He was suffering great injustice nightly, so it appeared from what he told me. He was recalled regularly at the end of the scene in which he and his brother demons were knocked about by the low comedian, but the management would not allow him to go on again and bow. “They are jealous,” whispered Mat to me, as we strolled into _The Rodney_ (it would be unprofessional for an actor to meet a human creature whose swallowing organization was intact, and not propose a drink)--“jealous, that’s what it is. I’m getting too popular, and they think I shall cut them out.” The poor fellow was madder than ever, and I was just thinking so at the very moment that he turned to me and said: “Do you think I’m mad? candidly now.” It’s a little awkward when a maniac asks you point-blank if you think he’s mad. Before I could collect myself sufficiently to reply, he continued: